February 2012
8 posts
“When we artificially prop up the weak ones, all we end up with is perpetual...”
– Beesource Beekeeping » Bottomless Beekeeping
January 2012
6 posts
Recipes for the Semi-Vegan - Interactive Feature -... →
December 2011
14 posts
“The basic steps in making olive oil are always the same, no matter what kind of...”
– Extraction Process | The Olive Oil Source
“In Berkeley, California, the Karma Clinic has been treating people with holistic...”
– Sacred Economics: Chapter 21, Working in the Gift (Part 22) | Reality Sandwich
How to Substitute Honey For Sugar in Home Canning... →
Watch
Jerusalem Artichoke Hummus with Spiced Oil
SERVINGS: 8 Ingredients 1 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons hot paprika
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
12 medium pita breads, cut into 8 wedges each
2 pounds Jerusalem artichokes
One 19-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1/3 cup sesame tahini
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley Directions 1.In a small skillet, stir the fennel and coriander seeds over moderate heat until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the crushed pepper and paprika and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds longer. 2.Transfer the spices to a blender. Add the oil and blend until almost smooth. Pour the spiced oil into a jar, cover and let stand overnight at room temperature. Strain the oil through cheesecloth and discard the spices. 3.Preheat the oven to 375°. Spread the pitas on 2 large baking sheets and toast for about 12 minutes, or until crisp. 4.Spread the Jerusalem artichokes on a rimmed baking sheet, cover tightly with foil and bake until tender, about 45 minutes to 1 1/4 hours, depending on their size. Remove them as they are done and let cool to room temperature. Using a small metal spoon, scoop out and reserve the flesh, discarding the skins. 5.In a food processor, puree the chickpeas and garlic. Add the Jerusalem artichokes, tahini and lemon juice and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste and let stand for at least 2 hours or refrigerate overnight. 6.Spoon the hummus into a bowl, drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the spiced oil and garnish with the parsley. Serve the crisp pita chips alongside. 7.ONE SERVING Calories 436 kcal, Total Fat 11 gm, Saturated Fat 1.4 gm
November 2011
5 posts
Moon Child
Moon Child on the horizon
Eclipsing sun and moon
Coming in with Love mesmerizing
Leo sun sign of birth
One hand controls the tides
The other caress man
Across the universe rides
Building castles in the sand
Hiding in the darkness
Glowing full of light
Alone in total starkness
Quietly moving thru the night
Stimulating hearts and mind
Romancing legends and heroes
Searching intellect to...
October 2011
20 posts
“After years and years of scraping/shoveling/scrubbing chicken poop I now have a...”
– Raising Chickens 2.0: No More Coop and Run!
http://saltonyourwound.tripod.com/basic_panda_food_... →
OWS Reading List | OccupyWallSt.org Forum →
OWS Reading List
Nonfiction Wall Street, by Doug Henwood (available for free download)
Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, by Steve Fraser
The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
Author Jeff Sharlet dropped off a hefty intellectual care package including Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce, Changing the Script by Dan Schultz, and three of his own titles
Agenda For A New Economy, by David Korten
No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart, by Tom Slee
The Great Risk Shift, by Jacob Hacker
The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, by Steven Greenhouse
Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin by John D'Emilio
Parting the Waters, by Taylor Branch
Fiction The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin (a very popular suggestion)
The Master and the Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
Iron Council by China Miéville
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville (as a Crooked Timber commenter noted, wryly, Bartleby was the original occupier of Wall Street)
“Train naturally: parkour is a stellar poster child for natural movement...”
– The Definitive Guide to Parkour For Beginners | Nerd Fitness
GreenPages.Org | The Directory of Products and... →
“Fail, Adjust, Iterate.”
Debt can endure forever; wealth cannot, because its physical dimension is subject to the destructive force of entropy.
—Frederick Soddy Suppose I have twelve loaves of bread, and you are hungry. I cannot eat so much bread before it goes stale, so I am happy to lend some of it to you. “Here, take these six loaves,” I say, “and when you have bread in the future, you can give me six loaves back again.” I give you six fresh loaves now, and you give me six fresh loaves sometime in the future. In a world where the things we need and use go bad, sharing comes naturally. The hoarder ends up sitting alone atop a pile of stale bread, rusty tools, and spoiled fruit, and no one wants to help him, for he has helped no one. Money today, however, is not like bread, fruit, or indeed any natural object. It is the lone exception to nature’s law of return, the law of life, death, and rebirth, which says that all things ultimately return to their source. Money does not decay over time, but in its abstraction from physicality, it remains changeless or even grows with time, exponentially, thanks to the power of interest. We associate money very closely with self. As the word “mine” implies, we see our money almost as an extension of our selves, which is why we feel “ripped off” when it is taken from us. Money, then, violates not only the natural law of return, but the spiritual law of impermanence. Associating something that persists and grows over time with a self that ages, dies, and returns to the soil perpetuates an illusion. Though we all know better, we imagine somehow that by adding wealth we add to ourselves and can gain the imperishability of money. We store it up for old age, as if we could thereby forestall our own decay. What would be the effect of money that, like all other things, decays and returns to its source? We have attached an exponentially growing money to a self and world that are neither exponential nor even linear, but cyclic. The result, as I have described, is competition, scarcity, and the concentration of wealth. The answer to the question I posed earlier, “What has gone wrong with this beautiful idea called money, which can connect human gifts and human needs?” comes down in large part to interest, to usury. But usury itself is not some isolated phenomenon that could have been different if only we’d made a wiser choice somewhere down the line. It is irrefrangibly bound to our sense of self, the separate self in an objective universe, whose evolution parallels the evolution of money. It is no accident that the first highly monetized society, ancient Greece, was also the birthplace of the modern concept of the individual. This deep link between money and being is good news because human identity today is undergoing a profound metamorphosis. What kind of money will be consistent with the new self, the connected self, and a world in which we increasingly realize the truth of interconnectedness: that more for you is more for me? Given the determining role of interest, the first alternative currency system to consider is one that structurally eliminates it, or even that bears interest’s opposite. After all, if interest causes competition, scarcity, and polarization, then might not its opposite create cooperation, abundance, and community? And if interest represents the proceeds from the ancient and ongoing robbery of the commons, might not its opposite replenish it? What would that opposite look like? It would be a money that, like bread, becomes less valuable over time. It would be money, in other words, that decays—money that is subject to a negative interest rate, also known as a demurrage charge.1 Decaying currency is one of the central ideas of this book, but before I lay out its history, application, economic theory, and consequences, I would like to say a bit about the term “decay,” which I have been advised to avoid due to its negative connotations. Why does “decay” seem negative, and “preservation” a virtue? This attitude arises again from the story of Ascent, in which humanity’s destiny is to transcend nature; to triumph over entropy, chaos, and decay; and to establish an ordered realm: scientific, rational, clean, controlled. Complementary to it is a spirituality of separation, in which a nonmaterial, eternal, deathless, divine soul inhabits an impermanent, mortal, profane body. So we have sought to conquer the body, conquer the world, and arrest the processes of decay. Unfortunately, by so doing we also arrest the larger process of which decay is part: renewal, rebirth, recycling, and the spiraling evolution toward more vastly integrated complexity. Thankfully, the stories of Separation and Ascent are drawing to a close. It is time to reclaim the beauty and necessity of decay, both in our thinking and in our economics.
“Amaranth – cut seed head when majority of flowers feel stiff to the touch,...”
– Seed Saving Instructions | Native Seeds/SEARCH
“Green Products & Resources Directory”
– EcoBusinessLinks - Green Directory
“198 Methods of Nonviolent Action”
– Albert Einstein Institution - 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action